The Market Report

After perusing my notes from this weekend's trip to the Dallas Market Center, I have to ask: What is it with you people and your obsession with red coral? Really - how many red coral throw pillows, rugs, and other objets d'crap do you need in your house? Apparently, quite a few. Last time, it was wine. This time it was Red. Coral. Everywhere. I swear I felt like I had sand in my crack when it was all over with.

This was our last big trip to Market as Mama Turista is literally closing up shop this summer after 20+ years in the retail game. She will continue to work her incredible design magic but is thrilled to leave the day-to-day headaches of small business ownership behind her. God love her - I don't know how she put up with the general public and their asinine questions for that long. And sorting through the crap people continue to churn out or import in and offer up for her to sell. Fourteen floors of it in the World Trade Center alone.

Over the years, I've always made up little games to pass the time and/or stave off insanity on our trips to Market. Past fun includes: Count the stirrup pants tucked into flats; Count the broom skirts worn with tennis shoes; Complete a herd from the animal prints found or worn in each showroom; Feign extreme interest in the cheesiest thing in the showroom and try to get others to buy it; Spot the gay designer/rich and clueless buyer team in each showroom; Find the best snacks; Find the best mimosas; and Find the best free giveaways.

This year's winner in the last category was the free pen found in a really snooty furniture showroom. They had them placed in a few strategic places, and while the other showrooms gladly offer free food, drinks, and enough tote bags to smother a horse, THIS particular showroom was quite fond of their pens and thus quite stingy about giving them away. I casually grabbed a couple on the way out on our first pass through there, after which I saw this overgrown sorority girl/sales rep CHASE down the lady in front me, saying, "Ma'am! The pens are for buyers who place orders only!" And then she took the pen back!

SO ... the gauntlet was thrown down, and I picked it up and hurled it at that bitch and her Burberry headband. The next day, I made it my personal mission to get as many of those GD pens as I could WITHOUT placing an order. I walked around the showroom, acting like I gave a crap about their hideous furniture, and faked like I was writing down a bunch of SKU numbers. That bitch was on the prowl, as were her robotic minions, but I managed to elude and confuse them long enough to come out of there with the mother lode of those GD pens. I even took the one off the check-out desk four times. I'd see one of the robots put one up there, then I'd slide by and get it, and she'd look up, bewildered, and put out another one. Repeat. Four times. I was SO sly that Burberry headband actually came up and ASKED me if I would like a pen. I said "Yes. But I need one for my partner, too."

After that little exchange, I could hide my glee no more, and I hightailed it out of there before I peed in my pants. Behold, my treasure trove:

Total count: 14. In 15 minutes. And check out how big these GD pens are:

See my mad skills? And they're AWESOME pens. You can see I like grippy things on my pens, so that really raised the stakes. I did get some odd looks as my purse passed through the xray thing at the airport - I'm sure it looked like I was going to inject the whole plane with monkey flu or that I had some kind of hard core insulin dependency, when, in reality, I'm just a highly competitive pen snatcher. Take that, Burberry headband.